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Re: Autonomy Call Raises Romanian Hackles

24 03 2006  In response to: Autonomy call raises romanian hackles (BI No. 26, 18-Mar-06)

I would like to make some remarks regarding the article "Autonomy call raises romanian hackles" - Balkan Insight No. 26 - by Marian Chiriac in Bucharest


First of all I would like to appreciate the way the autor treats this very delicated question of szekler territorial autonomy. In overall he is very objective and tries to give a biased picture on the issue and I have to emphasize that this way of thinking is not very common among romanians.

In spite of it I have to make some corrections on what our romanian friend is telling us in his article. First of all Szeklers are hungarians, me as well I am a szekler hungarian. There is no any doubt that szeklers are hungarians and they have never been a separate ethic group. They have already been in the region where they are living now when the magyars of Árpád arrived in the Carpathian Basin around 890 DC. The history did not clarify until now - the issue is under research - how they - and other hungarians - came before the great hungarian invasion in the Carpathian Basin but more and more withnesses - the special szekler alfabet and scriptures which can be easily read in hungarian language - are showing us that they were here before the arrival of Árpád. The fact that they call themselves szeklers does not mean that they are not hungarians. The olteans, moldoveans and osans for examples are certainly romanians even tough they call themselves with these denominations. On the other hand is right that szeklers had always some kind of autonomy linked to the historical territory called szeklerland (Terra Siculorrum) where they constitute more than 75% of the population. The Szekler National Council, which does not represent only some Hungarians as our romanian friend said, but a much more larger population does not want anything more than for example the german language speaking people in South-Tirol (Italy), the swedish people on Aland island (Finland), the catalans and basques in Spain, albanians in Macedonia or the gagauz people in Republic of Moldova. So the type of territorial autonomy the szeklers are fighting for in a very democratic way cannot be considered as anti-democratic and in any case anti-European. The Romanian constitution cannot be an obstacle for such a demand when Romania is on his way towards European Union and we have to emphasize that szeklers possessed a similar type of autonomy between 1952 and 1968 in the communist era!

About the demografic picture in Transilvania I can present some figures taken from romanian statistics. 1941: 3,2 million romanians, 1,8 million hungarians, 1948: 3,7 million romanians, 1,5 million hungarians, 2002: 5,4 million romanians, 1,4 million hungarians. How could you explain the increase of the romanian population from 3,2 to 5,4 million and the decrease of the hungarian population from 1,8 to 1,4 (1,6 in 1992) million when the demografic rate of the two people was more or less the same in the last 50 years? The answer is very simple: programmed assimilation!

Nowadays everybody knows that in 1990 in Targu Mures (the town is the unofficial capital of Szeklerland - in hungarian is called Marosvásárhely) the street clashes were organised by the romanian intelligency who backed the transportation of several romanians against hungarians who had a peaceful demonstration.

The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania backs also an autonomous szekler region but their step by step politic did not have any result in the last sixteen years. And what is more the hungarian population in Transilvania decreased by 200 thousand and the programmed assimilation is reaching now the Szeklerland as well. Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures) for example which was more than 65% hungarian 30 years ago, now is fifty-fifty. That why the Szekler National Council would like to have the territorial autonomy as soon as possible which does not present any threat to the integrity of Romania and give certain security to the szeklers that unfavourable demografic changes will not continue on their territory. Bucharest must give this right to hungarians in Szeklerland before entering the European Union. Hungary made a big gesture towards romanians by ratifying among the firs countries the romanian accession treaty, now is the turn of the romanians to give something back.